'We Get It'

March 19, 1992

No U.S. senator had lost a primary since 1980, and no Illinois senator had lost one since 1930 -- till Tuesday. Sen. Alan Dixon was ousted by Cook County Recorder of Deeds Carol Moseley Braun. She is a black woman whose main themes were that the Senate was too white and too male and Senator Dixon was too conservative. She tapped the anti-Washington mood of voters and the anti-Dixon feeling of white and black women who resented his vote to confirm Clarence Thomas. "We get it," she told supporters in a victory speech, touching on the "they-just-don't-get-it" criticism of the male senators who professed not to believe Anita Hill's accusations against Judge Thomas. "We know how to do this." If she wins in November, she would be the first black woman senator ever. Even if she loses, she will have widened the horizons of millions of Americans.